I am a Shelfari user. I use it to keep track of my young adult lit reading. I enjoy adding books to my virtual bookshelf, tagging them as "to-read", "reading now", or "finished", rating them with a 5-star rating system, and writing a comment when I'm done. I like seeing all those books lined up with their virtual covers facing me, and searching for books that are like other books using the tag system. I like seeing what other people are reading and reading their reviews. You can see a sample of my shelf on the right side of this blog.
This year, our secondary librarian, in cooperation with our High School English department, signed up the grades 9-12 non-IB English students with Shelfari accounts. They are required to read books of their choosing at home and write comments at regular intervals, which are graded. Independent reading, a hard sell for teens with busy homework and activity schedules, has soared.
Middle School English Language Arts also has an independent reading requirement. We use a paper Reading Log where students track the time and number of pages for their reading. They track their thinking about their home reading books in their Reading Notebooks. For some students, the system is drudgery. They just want to read and enjoy and be done with it. I get that. But as their teacher, I also want to see proof that the reading is happening, and that they are thinking critically about their reading.
As mid-year approached, my 8th grade teaching partner and I decided to introduce Shelfari to our students. We waited until second semester for a couple of reasons: 1) the paper Reading Log is a very structured, visual account of their reading habits, which is useful for the beginning of the year, and 2) Shelfari's terms of use state that it is for ages 13 and up; enough of our students were still twelve during the first semester that we decided to hold off. As teachers, we were excited about introducing the technology to our students. We were sure the visual and social nature of the site would appeal to young teens. We also saw it as a way to back off from the tightly controlled paper Reading Log, and reduce the amount of homework kids were doing, while still holding them accountable for reading volume and tracking thinking.
We asked them to continue reading 100 minutes per week as a minimum. The Shelfari requirement is to write one comment per week (rather than two Reading Notebook entries) using this structure: date at the top, number of pages read or "page ___ to page ___" (they should be reading about 100 pages per week-- this is how we track volume), and then write either a "Reading Notebook"-like response if they are mid-book or a book review if they finished it.
During January, we got the students signed into Shelfari and set tightly controlled privacy settings. Since we were in the middle of a Book Club, students put their novel on their book shelf, and had an opportunity to put other books they'd read and enjoyed on their shelves as well. They "followed" each other. Our Mid-Book formative check was a comment on Shelfari responding to one of the unit's essential questions, and our January Reading Log was a book review on their novel. This was a good way to introduce the technology and requirements in a structured, guided way.
In February, the reigns loosened completely. They were expected to read and respond weekly without in-class guidance. After two weeks, I checked in to see how things were going. Hmmm... lots of kids did not have two comments, although most had added their home reading book to their shelves. I went over the requirements again in class. After three weeks, I checked again. At this point, students should have had 3 comments recorded about their home reading. Shocker: 33 out of 41 students had at least 1 comment missing, and 8 students had nothing at all! Time to re-think.
Maybe Shelfari was too independent for 13-year-olds? Maybe Shelfari was too loosely structured? Maybe Shelfari was confusing or difficult to use? Was there not enough teaching behind it to help students know how to use it? Should we abandon it and go back to paper Reading Logs and Reading Notebook entries? Is it fair to yank it away for those students who actually were using it and did like it?
I had a serious talk with my classes. I shared my questions. I wondered aloud if 8th graders were not yet ready for the level of independence that Shelfari required (in actuality, the old system was just as independent). I gave them an ultimatum: There will be a two week trial in March. Those who demonstrate they can handle the higher independence level can keep going with Shelfari. Those who show they are not ready for it will go back to the paper system. If that doesn't work, their parents will have to sign off every week, just like sixth grade (was this too harsh? To be fair, I did teach many of them in sixth grade before I moved to eighth, so it was more a reference to our shared past than a comment on their maturity level). They asked if I could wait until Sundays (the first day of our school week) to check for their comments on the previous week's work. I agreed to that schedule.
So we'll see. I still think Shelfari is a great site to use for 8th graders. I think with every new system, there will be glitches. I also think middle schoolers are at various organisational and maturity levels, and those struggling kids might need scaffolds to hold them up as they ease into higher levels of independence and self-management. Ultimately, they will need to know how to manage this system in ninth grade. Better to grow into it now than fall flat in six months!
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